Media Talk.

Wjmk's Makeover Helping It Face Down Rival Wubt On Oldies Front

You get the feeling this has got to be a little weird for someone like Dick Biondi.

The longtime Chicago-area radio personality, now heard on WJMK-FM 104.3, can rattle off just about any statistic on a classic oldies star like Bobby Sherman.

But one of those new '70s bands the station is playing more often, like Queen, might be an altogether different story.

It's not always quite that obvious that oldies station WJMK is in the midst of an overhaul, even though the visible signs are everywhere, most prominently in a new logo.

One clear signal of the overhaul is that WJMK's owner, Infinity Broadcasting Corp., is spending money to advertise. As most radio marketing mavens will tell you, Infinity parts with nickels on advertising as if they were treasured family heirlooms.

Long one of the jewels in Infinity's crown of 10 oldies stations around the country, WJMK's format has worked in Chicago, despite competition from '70s stations, classic rock stations, light rock stations--and just about any other format that focused on one or two decades of music at a time.

Sixteen years with the same call letters and format says something about longevity in this market.

But if WJMK grew too complacent, it was shocked back to reality early last year, after AMFM Inc. changed its hard-rock WRCX-FM 103.5 to the "Jammin' Oldies" station WUBT.

The up-tempo Motown and R&B oldies station, under then-General Manager Michael Fowler, went after a core audience of the longtime oldies player in town.

In one Arbitron rating period, from fall 1998 to winter 1999, WUBT jumped from 17th place among all listeners to ninth. WJMK, meanwhile, fell from ninth to 12th.

WJMK had to do something.

But making a move to stay relevant to listeners is a tricky process. Any dramatic change to inject too much of one decade over another could mean losing a piece of its core audience.

Consider it a chemistry experiment--or tweaking with one of your longtime family recipes to get a different taste.

Too much of one ingredient can blow the whole thing up.

"What we're playing is not as important as what we're not playing now," says WJMK program director Kevin Robinson, who has been programming the station for eight years.

That means adding more songs from the '70s, and playing fewer "doo-wop" tunes from the early '60s--more synthesizers, fewer four-part harmonies.

What's so big about that? Plenty, considering that oldies stations may be beginning to part with some of what made them popular in the first place.

That's why many eyes within Infinity are watching WJMK closely.

Robinson says the station is constantly evolving its music. But it had to do something before losing more ground.

"We had to focus the station more," says Fowler, who jumped from WUBT's "The Beat" to WJMK this year, catching many in the industry by surprise.

He's credited with helping to infuse new life in a place with decor as consistent as its format.

"This frequency has been playing oldies for 16 years," he says. "If you fix the weaknesses, it's a great format."

Indeed, in light of the massive audience that Baby Boomers as a group make up, these may be the golden years for oldies stations, classic rock stations and other stations dipping into the past.

"In a format like this, there has to be some adjustments," says WJMK morning personality John Records Landecker. "It's a little more contemporary and fun, rather than antiquated, slow and old. I don't have to be as cutting edge as someone who is 19, but I'm not ready to go into an old people's home either."

Though it may be too early to tell if the turnaround is working, the station improved from 10th place last winter to fourth this winter among listeners ages 25-54. And that was before the station introduced much of its advertising and a big-money giveaway contest.

"The Beat," meanwhile, fell from third to seventh in that demographic. But it's not sitting still. The station snared legendary former WLS-AM 890 jock Larry Lujack out of retirement to co-anchor at least four shows over consecutive Thursdays, beginning May 25.

Most Chicago stations targeting older adults would have done anything to get Lujack back.

For listeners, it may make for some radio war fun. Landecker and Lujack are both veterans of the extraordinary WLS Top 40 era.

"It's a battle. It's a war," Landecker says. "The fun is in the struggle."